Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Two or three are sufficient to bind or loose, in context this refers to judging a brother and even excommunicating him from the fellowship as Paul did. "Telling it to the church" is informative, there is no indication that the church then rules on the case. There is no indication that these two or three need the authority of an elder or Apostle, rather they need to gather "in the name of Jesus".
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ZNP is wrong about this, that telling the church is informative, because the verse says
"if he neglect to hear the church", indicating that the church has something to say. And if the church has something to say about it, then it is clearly not just informative.
I can easily show that ZNP is wrong on this matter by presenting some scholarly resources. ZNP stresses the importance of the two or three but then ignores the matter of the church in the next verse, saying that telling the church is merely informative.
Here, Barne's says that bringing it to the church was a kind of trial:
Barne's notes on Matt 18:17 says:
Tell it to the church - See the notes at Matthew 16:18. The church may here mean the whole assembly of believers, or it may mean those who are authorized to try such cases - the representatives of the church, or these who act for the church. In the Jewish synagogue there was a bench of elders before whom trials of this kind were brought. It was to be brought to the church in order that he might be admonished, entreated, and, if possible, reformed. This was, and is always to be, the first business in disciplining an offending brother.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says similar:
tell it unto the church] The word “church” (Grk. ekklesia) is found only here and ch. Matthew 16:18 in the Gospels. In the former passage the reference to the Christian Church is undoubted. Here either (1) the assembly or congregation of the Jewish synagogue, or rather, (2) the ruling body of the synagogue (collegium presbyterorum, Schleusner) is meant. This must have been the sense of the word to those who were listening to Christ. But what was spoken of the Jewish Church was naturally soon applied to the Christian Church.
Geneva Study Bible says similar:
(i) He speaks not of just any policy, but of an ecclesiastical assembly, for he speaks afterward of the power of loosing and binding, which belonged to the Church, and he has regard for the order used in those days, at which time the elders had the judgment of Church matters in their hands, Joh 9:22 12:4216:2, and used casting out of the synagogue for a punishment, as we do now by excommunication.
Even John Piper upholds the authority of the church and its ability to rule:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles...ep-of-leniency
In ZNP's world, only two or three need to gather together in the name of Jesus and can decide about anything, even without elders. Not only was this not practiced in the early church (unless those two or three were apostles, of course), but even today it is impractical, and leads to the situation of denominationalism.